Hyperuniform long-range correlations are a signature of disordered jammed hard-particle packings

Abstract

We show that quasi-long-range (QLR) pair correlations that decay asymptotically with scaling $r^{-(d+1)}$ in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$, trademarks of certain quantum systems and cosmological structures, are a universal signature of maximally random jammed (MRJ) hard-particle packings. We introduce a novel hyperuniformity descriptor in MRJ packings by studying local-volume-fraction fluctuations and show that infinite-wavelength fluctuations vanish even for packings with size- and shape-distributions. Special void statistics induce hyperuniformity and QLR pair correlations.

10 pages, 3 figures; changes to figures and text based on review process; accepted for publication at Phys. Rev. Lett